Read More

“On our way back up the drive we saw yellow eyes in the trees, like it was following us. There was a growl the closer we got to the cars at that point we got scared and ran to the cars and put the lights on - there it was right in front of us. It then jumped over the fence in to the long grass where it seemed to be stalking us, growling.

The boathouse at Woodchester Park, Stroud

“We were trying to get a picture but it was just too dark. This was only four weeks ago and again last week we saw the same eyes in the tree line, deeper in by the lakes. It was not a puma, as it was too small - it was black with yellow eyes and slinked like a moggy.

Read More

Experts carrying out DNA tests on the carcass of a roe deer found at the National Trust’s Woodchester Park, near Stroud, amid speculation that it could have been brought down by a big cat in 2012

“We were sat in the boat at the boat house and it was behind us in the tree line then at the mansion it followed us up the drive to the car park.”

The historic parkland was the centre of national media attention in 2012 when the National Trust appointed Warwick University academics to test a deer carcass for predator DNA – only fox DNA was found.

Read More

Woodchester Park is now run by the National Trust belonged to the Ducie family for some 300 years before it was sold to William Leigh, the man responsible for the unfinished Victorian mansion on the site, the management of which is carried out by Woodchester Mansion Trust.

Coryn Memory took this footage of a suspected big cat near Stroud in 2012.

A spike in interest in big cats was prompted by the killing of deer early in 2012 in Woodchester Park and Dursley, and those were DNA tested by Warwick University.

Read More

Around month later, footage emerged from Coryn Memory, who filmed what appeared to be a big cat near Stroud.

And on Boxing Day 2015, all six of Reg Urquhart’s family saw a reddish-brown feline – which stood 2ft tall at the shoulder – just a few hundred yards away on the edge of Nailsworth.

This suspected big cat was spotted near Amberley, Stroud

In 2009, the Forestry Commission confirmed reliable sightings of large cats which its workers made during a deer census, using thermal imaging cameras on two occasions in different areas of the Forest of Dean.